Warzone Ukraine: Understanding Putin's Nuclear Threat
Connecting Russian Nuclear Doctrine to Putin's Speech
On September 21, 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed his nation. He announced a partial mobilization to buttress Russia’s depleted forces still fighting in Ukraine. While many speculate about the ramifications of the partial mobilization, I will focus on Putin’s nuclear threats.
While nuclear threats may seem strange to those living in the West, Putin’s threats follow Russian nuclear doctrine quite closely. I will walk you through existing Russian nuclear doctrine then demonstrate how they connect to Putin’s speech.
Russian Nuclear Doctrine
Michael Kofman and Anya Loukianova Fink chronicled the history of Soviet/Russian nuclear doctrine. First, we need to understand Russia’s typology of conflicts. These include
local war, a limited conflict typically between two states, akin to conflicts between Russia and Ukraine or Russia and Georgia;
regional war, which involves a coalition-sized fight and represents the smallest version of a possible Russia-NATO conflict;
large-scale war, which is a war between coalitions and great powers involving multiple theaters or regions.
Kofman and Fink state that the purpose of Russia’s nuclear stockpile is to
preclude a conflict from expanding ..… and terminate hostilities on terms acceptable to Moscow.
How will Russia preclude a conflict from expanding or terminate hostilities on their terms? Kofman and Fink note two stratagems. One involves
phases of demonstrative actions operating under the principle of deterrence by fear-inducement (устрашение),
The other consists of
progressive infliction of damage, which is deterrence through limited use of force (силовое сдерживание).
As Russia employs their stratagems, we must account for their thoughts regarding the limited use of force through nuclear weapons.
However, in contrast with Soviet thinking, the Russian military does not believe that limited nuclear use necessarily leads to uncontrolled escalation.
Many of us cannot image the use of nuclear weapons remaining limited, and Russia is counting on that.
A large strategic nuclear arsenal is not just important as a survivable nuclear deterrent. It raises the fear of uncontrolled nuclear escalation once nuclear weapons are used. This nuclear dread generates psychological pressure on the elites and population of a targeted state to avoid escalation once nuclear weapons are used.
Kofman and Fink remind us that Russia can envision itself using nuclear weapons in a conflict.
Can Russia find itself fighting a war that it perceives to be defensive in nature, and then resort to nuclear first use as the conflict escalates? Absolutely
Let’s apply our learnings to Putin’s recent address.
Putin’s Speech
Putin begins his speech by specifying his war aims. He neglects to mention the original plan for regime change in Kyiv and focuses on the liberation of the Donbas and another area called Novorossiya (New Russia).
The main goal of this operation, which is to liberate the whole of Donbass, remains unaltered…..
We know that the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis, and these are primarily the historical lands of Novorossiya.
Below I present three maps, the first map depicts the Donbas, the second shows the historical land of Novorossiya, and the third displays Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. You can see that Russia’s current occupation includes both the Donbas and Novorossiya.
Now that we defined Putin’s war aims as the liberation of The Donbas and Novorossiya we need to classify this current conflict according to Russia’s typology of conflicts. Kofman and Fink classified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a local war.
a local war, a limited conflict typically between two states, akin to conflicts between Russia and Ukraine or Russia and Georgia
Putin’s speech indicates that he believes this conflict graduated to regional war status. The speech included no more than 35 paragraphs, 14 of which mentioned “The West“ or “NATO“ as adversaries in the conflict. I see this fact, along with the partial mobilization, as Putin’s acknowledgement that his invasion of Ukraine reached regional war status. From Kofman and Fink
regional war, which involves a coalition-sized fight and represents the smallest version of a possible Russia-NATO conflict
Russian escalation management will try to preclude this small regional conflict from growing into a large regional conflict or, God forbid, a large-scale war. As Russia escalates the conflict through partial mobilization, they do not want The West or NATO to escalate their support for Ukraine. To accomplish this Putin will use deterrence by fear-inducement by threatening the use of nuclear weapons. To set up his threat Putin first accuses The West of using nuclear blackmail against Russia.
They [The West] have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.
After establishing Russia as the victim Putin follows through with his attempt at deterrence by fear-inducement
In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.
Conclusion
Kofman and Fink convinced me that the probability of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia is higher than I previously thought. Those of us who live in Western countries need to grapple with the thought of using nuclear weapons on the battlefield. This is a topic we have not need to contemplate since the end of the Great Power rivalry of the Cold War. As we enter this new era of Great Power rivalries we must, as uncomfortable as this sounds, allow the reality of nuclear weapons to re-enter our minds.